SteamOS isn't just an effort to move gamers and game-makers over to a Linux-based system, it also wants to move them from an office desk or laptop to the living room TV. Valve has already tested the waters for this by rolling out the Big Picture interface for Steam last September, making the service much easier to navigate with a controller in hand and a big-screen TV a few feet away.

This initiative seems to be paying dividends in getting PC game developers to support handheld controllers in addition to the PC's traditional mouse and keyboard. When Big Picture mode was launched last September, 23.7 percent of the games available on Steam were listed with full or partial controller support (382 games total). Of the games that have launched on Steam since then, about 48.4 percent have featured full or partial controller support (raising the total proportion of games in this category on Steam to 29.4 percent or 617 games total).

This could be a case of Valve simply favoring games that support controllers for Steam inclusion, of course, but it could also be indicative of a general trend toward less keyboard/mouse-heavy games that has nothing to do with Big Picture mode. On the flip side, developers might be reacting to Steam's long-running chatter about bringing PC gaming to the living room by adding more consistent controller support to their PC titles. In any case, the idea that you need a keyboard and mouse to play a large majority of PC games, or that the platform is unfriendly to games that need handheld controllers, is looking a lot less relevant than it did just a year or so ago.

That's good news for a company that wants to get PCs out of the office. Back in February, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell cited controls as the single biggest issue stopping PC gaming from succeeding in the living room. He said it's a problem that the company is working hard to solve. "We don't want to sell a bunch of [controller] hardware," Newell said at the time. "We want to move things forward. We'll sell hardware if we have to, but the big thing is to think through these issues."

Streaming as a trojan horse stopgap

Things look a little worse when considering the controller situation for Linux games. While 40 percent of all Linux games on Steam feature some form of controller support, that only amounts to 72 games total that are currently set up to work on a living room box running SteamOS (unless you want to manage a keyboard/mouse on the couch). That number could increase by the time SteamOS is actually launched, but it adds up to a big chunk of the Steam library that won't be natively playable on living room Steam boxes either due to operating system or controller constraints.

For Steam's 545 controller-supporting titles that don't run on Linux, you'll have to rely on SteamOS' support for "in-home streaming." This supports the full library of Steam games streaming from a second computer running a different OS. While Valve didn't provide any hardware details for the kinds of TV set-top boxes that would be required for this feature, Newell hinted back in February that he saw local-streaming-only boxes as the "good" end of a "good/better/best" spectrum of Steam Box configurations.

The technology is there for this kind of thing to work pretty cheaply. Projects like the Nvidia Shield and the PlayStation Vita's Remote Play capabilities on the PS3 (not to mention the recently announced PlayStation Vita TV's PS4 link) have shown that the average home broadband network can readily stream game audio and video from a computer in another room while also accepting and transmitting remote controller input, all without significant latency (Digital Foundry pegged the round-trip speed at a playable 100 ms for the Shield in testing). As Newell said in February, the key to making in-home streaming mainstream is to make it work seamlessly, without any worries about pairing devices, configuration, audio syncing, and input latency issues.

Still, in-home, second-screen streaming is likely just a stopgap solution for SteamOS. Valve's hope is that this kind of low-cost, seamless streaming to a second screen will act as a Trojan horse to help get millions of SteamOS-configured devices into living rooms around the world (though system-selling software would work just as well). At that point, PC game developers should have fewer qualms about developing or porting their games to work natively on the SteamOS platform already hooked up to so many TVs.

Promoted Comments

Or perhaps there are so many controller supported games because there are more Console -> PC ports being released right now. Unlike earlier in the generation when everyone was locking up games for their platform now they are porting everything possible to the PC to get more revenue. I am pretty sure the existence of more controller supporting games has nothing at all to do with Valve.

Also I really dislike the Big Screen view on my PC, just like Windows 8 having something up that obscures my desktop annoys me to no end. I could see value if I had my PC hooked up to my TV but that is not likely to happen.

I still think they need to make the case for why exactly this needs a whole OS instead of continuing as a simple Application/Big Picture Mode on TV. What exactly is the advantage? How signficant are the touted performance gains from Linux really (and if they are signficant, how can Windows be so bad?). I'm not sold on this, yet.

The idea of a "console as a platform" is intriguing. Porting games using OpenGL on the PS4 (which are already powered by a flavor of *nix) shouldn't be as big of a job as porting DirectX games on Xbox. I would say PS3 also falls into the category of easier (OpenGL/*nix) but I have never developed for it and have heard horror stories from others.

I'm especially interested to see the governance model that will be released, or if SteamOS is open at all! They say its free, but they haven't mentioned anything about the source. If SteamOS is truly Linux and they open the source then how well the code be governed? I think the community would be able to do great things with it, like a "Steam Enhanced" version of Android for example. Or port SteamOS to my Raspberry Pi or AppleTV and I would use it as a streaming only option.

The next two announcements will be interesting for sure. Hardware partners or at least blueprints should be one of the announcements...perhaps controller the other?

522 posts | registered Aug 30, 2001

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

Huh. I can get sub 100ms playing on a server 300 miles away. (Teamfortress 2) I wonder how much shorter we can make things with a little concerted effort? I get that the 'package' is gonna bit a bit larger (I guess about what Netflix does with standard HD + controller inputs... which shouldn't add much, surely?).

Does I have a reason to upgrade to gigabyte ethernets?

Edit: really, no one's interested in placing around with that 100ms figure from the article? Hokay.

I love Big Picture mode when I toggle monitors to use my 50' TV; it's absolutely glorious playing Witcher 2 on max settings including Ubersampling and still averaging about 50fps. It blows what current games look like on consoles out of the water

I just REALLY wish they would fix the notification issue that acts like I press Alt-Tab every time a Steam group invites me to play some multiplayer on TF2 or Dota2.

When MS tried to get developers to include Xbox 360/etc controller support, it was bad.

Now Valve are trying to get developers to include it, it's great!

It was only bad because Microsoft for the first time offered native gamepad support in Vista. Now that the native support exists, the framework and drivers exists, Valve has very little to sell to customers ( with regard to controller support at least ).

If it worked as a plugin for XBMC it would be a much better fit for my home entertainment solution.Putting another Linux box in with my low profile Openelec box, Roku box and video receiver doesn’t really appeal to me. I’m trying to reduce that footprint, not expand on it.

Or perhaps there are so many controller supported games because there are more Console -> PC ports being released right now. Unlike earlier in the generation when everyone was locking up games for their platform now they are porting everything possible to the PC to get more revenue. I am pretty sure the existence of more controller supporting games has nothing at all to do with Valve.

Also I really dislike the Big Screen view on my PC, just like Windows 8 having something up that obscures my desktop annoys me to no end. I could see value if I had my PC hooked up to my TV but that is not likely to happen.

If it worked as a plugin for XBMC it would be a much better fit for my home entertainment solution.Putting another Linux box in with my low profile Openelec box, Roku box and video receiver doesn’t really appeal to me. I’m trying to reduce that footprint, not expand on it.

I'd be pretty disappointed if XBMC isn't supported on SteamOS. It's Linux after all, and Valve is aiming to make it very living-room-friendly. They'd be foolish to keep users from running one of the most popular media players on the same box.

Not a big Linux user, but with XInput being proprietary how well has it been reverse engineered on the Linux side of things? A cursory Googling says "Not great". I use M+KB and XInput (in my case an actual X360 pad) controller pretty much equally, using whatever feels most comfortable for a particular game, so controller support in SteamOS is going to be pretty critical I would think.

Edit: Just remembering about the pre-XInput days of trying to figure out which button on a controller was "Button 5" or "Button 1". XInput may be proprietary but at least it brought a semblance of standard button mappings!

Or perhaps there are so many controller supported games because there are more Console -> PC ports being released right now. Unlike earlier in the generation when everyone was locking up games for their platform now they are porting everything possible to the PC to get more revenue. I am pretty sure the existence of more controller supporting games has nothing at all to do with Valve.

That's the impression I always got too, but it would be nice to hear from developers themselves. Maybe Kyle could make another article on that, hint hint...

Quote:

Also I really dislike the Big Screen view on my PC, just like Windows 8 having something up that obscures my desktop annoys me to no end. I could see value if I had my PC hooked up to my TV but that is not likely to happen.

Where is the incentive to have a company port a game to a system? Steambox will essentially be a niche "OnLive Home Edition" piece of hardware. It is a solution to Valves problems, but not really a solution to any consumer problems.

The average consumer who wants to play COD or BF3 on the big screen with a controller will buy it for the Xbox or PS3 under the TV.

The odd consumer that wants PC level of graphics to play COD or BF3 in the living room have built themselves a top end box to go under the TV, and with the exception of a few die hards, they are using the TV box to watch kitty videos on netflix and are playing on their computer in the computer room.

Most consumers who want the PC experience don't want use a controller. Not all, but most.

Between the 2 other threads here at ARS, the only people who are really being rabid about this are the people who wanted the Steambox to really be the next thing and are still in denial, and those who believe that because its got Linux on it, that Linux is about to dawn as the saviour of all things PC.

I have bad news for both camps.

Steambox, while novel, sucks. It does nothing but fragment the market. Do you all think that Activision or EA is going to spend 50k$ porting something over when they know they can stream it from the PC and get exactly the same effect for free? We'll see 37 variants of Angry Birds, probably an emulator or two, and anything that Valve develops for it.

Linux will not get its dawn here. It will never get its dawn until the its easy enough for lowest common denominator to do everything they can on their PC. You know that one relative who calls you because his/her computer is slow because they click on every stupid link Facebook forces their way? Thats the person Linux needs to be aimed at. And it better be simple for them to figure out, or call you to fix. Until then, Linux is not for the consumer. Its for people who believe they are prosumers because they don't need windows. 95% of the PC(exlcuding Apple here) market needs windows because its simple and it works.

I wanted Steambox to be awesome. It may yet be awesome, but right now it sucks.

I still think they need to make the case for why exactly this needs a whole OS instead of continuing as a simple Application/Big Picture Mode on TV. What exactly is the advantage? How signficant are the touted performance gains from Linux really (and if they are signficant, how can Windows be so bad?). I'm not sold on this, yet.

Or perhaps there are so many controller supported games because there are more Console -> PC ports being released right now. Unlike earlier in the generation when everyone was locking up games for their platform now they are porting everything possible to the PC to get more revenue. I am pretty sure the existence of more controller supporting games has nothing at all to do with Valve.

It's not only that, X-Input works a ton better than the older Direct Input. In nearly all modern games, you just plug in a Xbox 360 compatible controller and they automatically switch the onscreen prompts to the controllers. There's really no fiddling involved at all, which is great considering how annoying the older setup was.

I understand traditional PC gamers who don't want to game on their TVs. But that makes you all even LESS qualified to assume what 'everyone' else wants. I know plenty of console gamers who are fed up with MS and Sony and Nintendo, and who would seriously consider a 'SteamBox' for a multitude of reasons, but are intimidated by the idea of hardware requirements, lack of input options and ability to play on a big screen.

Are they 'traditional' PC gamers? NO. But they are gamers who would be an asset to help PC gaming evolve an grow... and step #1 is making people realize that a PC DOES belong in the living room.

I still think they need to make the case for why exactly this needs a whole OS instead of continuing as a simple Application/Big Picture Mode on TV. What exactly is the advantage? How signficant are the touted performance gains from Linux really (and if they are signficant, how can Windows be so bad?). I'm not sold on this, yet.

I wonder if one of the next 2 announcements will include a proprietary controller (Gabe didn't explicitly rule it out).

An OS dedicated to gaming like SteamOS will undoubtedly have better performing games than a general purpose OS like Windows or OSX. So that could be one reason. The performans gains from a general purpose Linux OS are undoubtedly there but I'd take their significance with a grain of salt. Valve is primarily set on selling this whole "The future of games is Steam and Linux" idea that they've invested in, so obviously any jubilant messages coming from them in that regard should be considered marketingspeak, plain and simple.

I still think they need to make the case for why exactly this needs a whole OS instead of continuing as a simple Application/Big Picture Mode on TV.

Its a Linux distro (in essence). And its purpose is to both provide support for gaming related issues (which other distros won't really do) and to make it easy to setup for this specific purpose.

Others like Ubuntu have a conflict of interests, and Valve can't get a guarantee that they'll provide the consistency, ease of use, and reliability that Valve needs.

It also protects against regressions any of these distros might decide to make. Not only in UI - but in functionality like Bluetooth (which Canonical crippled in Ubuntu a few years ago) or controller compatibility as well.

For me, SteamOS (and likely SteamBox) is too little too late. I already drilled the holes and ran a 75' HDMI cable through the walls from my bedroom (PC) to my living room. With USB over Cat5, I have a wireless KB&M and Xbox controller in my coffee table, and my wife and I game on our couch every evening (she uses a laptop). For me, SteamOS would need to be something amazing to even consider switching.

When MS tried to get developers to include Xbox 360/etc controller support, it was bad.

Now Valve are trying to get developers to include it, it's great!

Depends. The Xbox controller could only be used via a special API. Microsoft implemented in a way that classic Direct Input could not be used. That meant that 1.) all older gamepads were suddenly worthless for newer games and 2.) the Xbox pad did not work with older games that used Direct Input API.

I still think they need to make the case for why exactly this needs a whole OS instead of continuing as a simple Application/Big Picture Mode on TV. What exactly is the advantage?

This sounds more patronizing than I intend, but it seems pretty obvious to me; it seems like the lesson learned from having to reimplement the Source engine for multiple operating systems. That's a huge operational cost. If you can funnel people into one developmental mode (in that there's one operating system that works as an effective engine for all games) then they're saving themselves from having to develop Source2 for iOS, Windows, and Linux.

I don't understand what is the difference between this Steambox gaming and console gaming? Play with gamepad, TV and gaming dedicated computing hardware.

Not trying to be PC gaming snob or anything, and it looks like a promising system. I just don't see any difference. Its a console.

The difference would mainly be in configuration/upgradability. There could be dozens of different SteamOS-powered "consoles" at different price points/power levels, for instance, instead of the one or two configurations offered by console makers. And if the graphics card on a SteamOS box gets old, you can upgrade it, and your games will look better. That's a big difference!

I don't think that this is meant to supplant the existing Windows, Linux and Mac OS Steam clients. So I don't think anyone needs to feel like their favourite way to access Steam is going to disappear. This is just one more way to access the content available on Steam. There is no reason you couldn't just install the Steam Linux client on another distribution and play all the same games as you can on the Steam Box or continue to use Windows because I can't see publishers dropping Windows support any time soon.

I think the big point is that Valve doesn't care what you're running the games on, they want to be able to sell to anyone.

The difference would mainly be in configuration/upgradability. There could be dozens of different SteamOS-powered "consoles" at different price points/power levels, for instance, instead of the one or two configurations offered by console makers. And if the graphics card on a SteamOS box gets old, you can upgrade it, and your games will look better. That's a big difference!

Or there won't be any SteamBox consoles and instead SteamOS will be used as the OS on smart TVs. Those things are usually powered by Linux anyway.

I don't see the need for another console - are we really going to get anything different than what we have with the current consoles? Everything will have to be locked down or piracy will be rampant. And the controller will need to be something like the current console controllers or you are forced to deal with a keyboard/mouse on a couch (which kinda sucks). Is there really anything a different closed OS can offer that will differentiate from the PS4/XBOX1? I doubt it. To me, this seems like a poor idea and is likely just an attempt by Valve to remain relevant as the ecosystem of Windows changes (and gradually pushes things like the Steam ecosystem toward irrelevancy).

Maybe I am unusual but I really don't care what the OS is, I care about the applications that can run on the OS (and the ease of use and flexibility of use). Android is fine because Google has made it so. I don't think Valve can do as well and the competition is much stiffer because there are two established players (Sony and MS) in the living room (if you don't count Nintendo - and most people don't when it comes to the living room). Talk about playing with a short stack - this venture seems very likely to fail. I could see someone like Apple having a chance to pull it off (they have the cash and the understanding about how to make a slick UI). Valve - not so much.

I don't understand what is the difference between this Steambox gaming and console gaming? Play with gamepad, TV and gaming dedicated computing hardware.

Not trying to be PC gaming snob or anything, and it looks like a promising system. I just don't see any difference. Its a console.

The difference would mainly be in configuration/upgradability. There could be dozens of different SteamOS-powered "consoles" at different price points/power levels, for instance, instead of the one or two configurations offered by console makers. And if the graphics card on a SteamOS box gets old, you can upgrade it, and your games will look better. That's a big difference!

Why not just use a normal linux or windows os, and just use big screen mode when you want and not lose normal OS features.

The whole thing just seems like no matter what you're ending up with another rig in your living room.

I'm really not trying to troll... they just need to prove this can run "better" or something or it just comes off as gimping the system to me....

Where is the incentive to have a company port a game to a system? Steambox will essentially be a niche "OnLive Home Edition" piece of hardware. It is a solution to Valves problems, but not really a solution to any consumer problems.

The average consumer who wants to play COD or BF3 on the big screen with a controller will buy it for the Xbox or PS3 under the TV.

The odd consumer that wants PC level of graphics to play COD or BF3 in the living room have built themselves a top end box to go under the TV, and with the exception of a few die hards, they are using the TV box to watch kitty videos on netflix and are playing on their computer in the computer room.

Most consumers who want the PC experience don't want use a controller. Not all, but most.

Between the 2 other threads here at ARS, the only people who are really being rabid about this are the people who wanted the Steambox to really be the next thing and are still in denial, and those who believe that because its got Linux on it, that Linux is about to dawn as the saviour of all things PC.

I have bad news for both camps.

Steambox, while novel, sucks. It does nothing but fragment the market. Do you all think that Activision or EA is going to spend 50k$ porting something over when they know they can stream it from the PC and get exactly the same effect for free? We'll see 37 variants of Angry Birds, probably an emulator or two, and anything that Valve develops for it.

Linux will not get its dawn here. It will never get its dawn until the its easy enough for lowest common denominator to do everything they can on their PC. You know that one relative who calls you because his/her computer is slow because they click on every stupid link Facebook forces their way? Thats the person Linux needs to be aimed at. And it better be simple for them to figure out, or call you to fix. Until then, Linux is not for the consumer. Its for people who believe they are prosumers because they don't need windows. 95% of the PC(exlcuding Apple here) market needs windows because its simple and it works.

I wanted Steambox to be awesome. It may yet be awesome, but right now it sucks.

Youre missing the developer side of things. SteamOS, Linux, iOS, PS4, Windows, they all run OpenGL. Microsoft is the only company pushing DirectX and they are faltering on that front. Hence the reason Gabe moved to Linux. Your biggest problem in porting is switching to the new APIs. Once there, porting to different platforms is relatively minor.

You are also missing the advantages that Linux brings to the table. Stop thinking of this as a PC and start thinking about this as an appliance. The average user will be able to buy a SteamOS box that does gaming just as well as a PC, doesn't get viruses or malware, has all the functionality of a Roku, and doesn't lock you to a device. Think your xbox stuff will ever transfer to the new xbox? unlikely. Plus, being an open architecture means that the sky is the limit when it comes to new features. I predict that there will be an entire community built around modding the SteamOS and building custom boxes. But that isn't for the vast public. For them it will still be an appliance.

Not a big Linux user, but with XInput being proprietary how well has it been reverse engineered on the Linux side of things? A cursory Googling says "Not great". I use M+KB and XInput (in my case an actual X360 pad) controller pretty much equally, using whatever feels most comfortable for a particular game, so controller support in SteamOS is going to be pretty critical I would think.

Edit: Just remembering about the pre-XInput days of trying to figure out which button on a controller was "Button 5" or "Button 1". XInput may be proprietary but at least it brought a semblance of standard button mappings!

XInput is not required to create standard button mappings. Valve could just release a diagram showing the button layout and which button signal a press emits and be done.

The one point I'd like to make is actually re: gamepad vs kbd/mouse: Both have their place.

Gamepads don't belong in FPSes. Take Mass Effect: the first game had good controls. The controls in the second and third freakin' sucked, because they were designed for a gamepad and reduced the number of command keys by doing stupid shit like combining sprint, crouch, and jump.

But frankly, I could see how Skyrim would be basically fine on a gamepad. All they'd need to do is add a bit of smart targeting (which they should anyway, given the propensity of companions to randomly get in your way during combat) and it wouldn't detract from gameplay in the least. It didn't have the dependence on real-time commands characteristic of FPSes.

The idea of a "console as a platform" is intriguing. Porting games using OpenGL on the PS4 (which are already powered by a flavor of *nix) shouldn't be as big of a job as porting DirectX games on Xbox. I would say PS3 also falls into the category of easier (OpenGL/*nix) but I have never developed for it and have heard horror stories from others.

I'm especially interested to see the governance model that will be released, or if SteamOS is open at all! They say its free, but they haven't mentioned anything about the source. If SteamOS is truly Linux and they open the source then how well the code be governed? I think the community would be able to do great things with it, like a "Steam Enhanced" version of Android for example. Or port SteamOS to my Raspberry Pi or AppleTV and I would use it as a streaming only option.

The next two announcements will be interesting for sure. Hardware partners or at least blueprints should be one of the announcements...perhaps controller the other?

I don't see the need for another console - are we really going to get anything different than what we have with the current consoles? Everything will have to be locked down or piracy will be rampant. ...

I don't think the piracy is an issue. It will be the same as the PC now and Valve is definitely making money off the PC market. Steam offers a better service than the pirates, that's the key. People pay for games on steam because it is one click to install and your library is managed for you. Pirates could never offer that.

SteamOS is not another platform. Linux is an existing platform. SteamOS is just another method Valve is using to encourage PC developers to use game engines that run on multiple platforms - Consoles, Windows and Linux. Valve already took steps to make the Steam engine easy to port between Windows and the XBox. Then they took steps to make the Steam engine work under both Windows and Linux. Now they've developed a LinuxOS that lets customers try out Linux as a living room, gaming platform, which in turn encourages developers to continue developing for multiple platfoms.

At any rate, Valve is concerned that if Microsoft starts pushing games from Windows PCs to the XBox, then Steam won't have a viable platform on which to run. It's vital that Valve make Linux a viable and common platform, so that Steam has a future. (Alternatively, they'd have to build their own console, and that's something they don't really want to do.)

Quote:

I wanted Steambox to be awesome. It may yet be awesome, but right now it sucks.

I don't understand what is the difference between this Steambox gaming and console gaming? Play with gamepad, TV and gaming dedicated computing hardware.

Not trying to be PC gaming snob or anything, and it looks like a promising system. I just don't see any difference. Its a console.

The difference would mainly be in configuration/upgradability. There could be dozens of different SteamOS-powered "consoles" at different price points/power levels, for instance, instead of the one or two configurations offered by console makers. And if the graphics card on a SteamOS box gets old, you can upgrade it, and your games will look better. That's a big difference!

Why not just use a normal linux or windows os, and just use big screen mode when you want and not lose normal OS features.

The whole thing just seems like no matter what you're ending up with another rig in your living room.

I'm really not trying to troll... they just need to prove this can run "better" or something or it just comes off as gimping the system to me....

That's a valid concern, but very different from "SteamOS is just like a console" argument.

That number could increase by the time SteamOS is actually launched, but it adds up to a big chunk of the Steam library that won't be natively playable on living room Steam boxes either due to operating system or controller constraints.

Across the board, how well is Linux support for controllers more sophisticated than a generic?

I still think they need to make the case for why exactly this needs a whole OS instead of continuing as a simple Application/Big Picture Mode on TV. What exactly is the advantage?

This sounds more patronizing than I intend, but it seems pretty obvious to me; it seems like the lesson learned from having to reimplement the Source engine for multiple operating systems. That's a huge operational cost. If you can funnel people into one developmental mode (in that there's one operating system that works as an effective engine for all games) then they're saving themselves from having to develop Source2 for iOS, Windows, and Linux.

So you're expecting future games to only come out on SteamOS and not on Windows, OSX, Linux, or Playstation? That seems just a tad unrealistic.

I am quite excited about the streaming part. If it really works I won't have to maintain two computers upgraded, instead I can keep my desktop at top notch in a place where heat is not a concern and my htpc a lot cheaper and energy efficient below my plasma TV (which is already a furnace by itself).

So.... now I have two so-so gaming computers (they cost money, you know?), if streaming takes off I can spend my money more wisely!